


Burnt Out Flames Should Never Reignite

by sapphire2309



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-05-24 16:24:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6159538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's lost quite a few keys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burnt Out Flames Should Never Reignite

**Author's Note:**

> Post anklet, Neal's left for parts unknown. Title from Home by Daughter.  
> This is for [joy2190](http://joy2190.livejournal.com/), who left me [this prompt](http://sapphire2309.livejournal.com/4312.html?thread=217816#t217816) way back when, and it caught my eye so here you go. Sorry for the ridiculous delay. I'm so terrible with prompts it's not funny.  
> I'm sorry, but I literally cannot arrange words any other way, there are way too many run on sentences, and a not exactly _happy_ ending, but this is the only way words are cooperating with me right now. I'm sorry.  
>  **Disclaimer:** White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.  
> 

He's been dropping keys all over the place ever since Neal's anklet was unlocked for the last time. He gave that key back and lost so, so many more.

He used to be able to connect with Neal, if not know what he was thinking. Now there's no Neal to connect with. It feels like a part of his mind that they could only reach together has been locked off and he wasn't even given the key, wasn't even given the opportunity to keep it safe. Someone just assumed he'd lose it and denied him access.

It's _his brain_. No one should be able to do that.

Neal did.

That bastard.

-:-

  
They were good together. They were Butch and Sundance, performing some necessary ritual with their little touches and verbal sparring; it somehow allowed them to be pretty damned awesome together. But it takes two people. One isn't enough.

He's losing things, losing things, can't hold on to them, he's pretty sure he'll lose his grip on sanity if this goes on for much longer.

He can manage paperwork, he can sign his name on the dotted line after reading over someone else's work and making sure it isn't too terrible, but those leaps of logic are gone, that brilliance is gone, and he doesn't know what he is without it, he doesn't remember what he was with it.

-:-

  
He should make a list. Of all the keys he's lost. It'll hurt, ripping out every memory, every instance, he's lost a lot of things that were apparently connected to Neal, so many things that have just decided to collapse on him, and there may be no point to this list because he isn't sure that a key will bring them back.

Including his ability to think while staring out at the bullpen, apparently. Every time he looks out, his mind falls into frenzy and is unable to focus. Because Neal's chair is empty, which means he's doing something less than legal (probably), but that chair's been empty for a while now. Two months, eleven days and change, and he should be surprised that the world isn't a glowing neon sign reading 'chaos' yet. That chair is going to stay empty for a lot longer, or if it's filled, it won't be Neal. Neal isn't coming _back_.

He stares at the wall. It's blank. Always has been, always will be. It's reliable. Stable. Dependable. He should stare at it, make it his new crutch.

He stares out at the bullpen and worries about a city with Neal Caffrey roaming freely in it, because it's in his veins, because it's easier than completely accepting that he's in Paris or Ravello or some other corner of the world, he worries some more.

-:-

  
Nobody gets close enough to see anything. Except El. El is right in the middle of it all, he couldn't stop her if he tried, you can't spend as much time with her as he does without her noticing a sore this gigantic.

He can't recognize himself anymore, he's surprised she can. She can, she keeps telling him that, is she lying? But it hurts to think hard enough to puzzle his way through that, and besides, she keeps telling him so it must be at least partially true.

He keeps her away from the worst of the broken pieces. It isn't fair that she hurt herself over this rubbish heap.

But she does get there, eventually. He can try to keep her out, but Elizabeth Burke's glare is impossible to fight. She sees everything, she refuses to see any less, she will not rest or let anyone else rest till she knows what's wrong and has done everything she can to fix it.

There's nothing she can do.

-:-

  
Neal comes back, eventually, after a year and three days and more change. It's understandable, New York's a hard city to let go of. Neal comes back and everything's the same.

That's terrible.

Nothing is fixed. Everything's still in ruins. The whole goddamned landscape is littered with rubble because Neal left and now he's back but the rubble is still rubble and somehow, that's Neal's fault, it is, it _is_ , and various little pieces of him are shattered but Neal doesn't notice, nobody notices.

Neal is back, and somehow they're bantering like they always would, but Peter doesn't feel himself getting better, doesn't feel the healing and mending and things fitting together again, he just feels the same as he has since Neal left. Broken around the edges.

He doesn't know. He just... goddammit, he doesn't _know_ anymore. There's nothing to know. Nothing's changing. Just more, smaller pieces, oh, oops, now they're dust.

-:-

  
"You broke him," Elizabeth tells Neal.

Neal's confused. Peter seems fine, on the surface.

Peter may have picked up some of Neal's tricks

"He's hurt and broken and _you_ did this," her voice breaks, Neal flinches in fear, Elizabeth Burke has never frightened him more, "and you are not leaving this house till you make it okay." She points a frying pan at his nose and Neal is bewildered but he nods, eyes wide, even though he doesn't know what to do.

He's bewildered because he's never been close enough to someone to hurt them like _this_. He hurt Kate, but it wasn't by leaving her behind, he hurt Alex, but Alex hurt him right back, she always gives as good as she gets, he's hurt a lot of people, but he's never been what they needed to be fixed, and he doesn't know how to do that.

He's never been someone's sun. And suddenly he is, and how do you deal with that, how do you handle suddenly being promoted to a gigantic, luminous ball of light, there is no manual, there are no guidelines, you're just suddenly it and somehow you have to deal.

He needs help but this is his fault, he fucked this up, pretty badly, and no one's going to lend him a shoulder.

-:-

  
It takes time to catch on fire again. The first time was so effortless, despite Neal having been in prison for four years in between encounters, but this sears, this fucking _burns_. They talk and discuss cases and create new hypotheticals and see faces into the stars and fuck, it hurts so much to stitch together this thing that they had.

Neal's splitting at the seams now, oh god what has he done who is this new Peter how could this _happen_ , but Peter's coming together again, slowly, the dust gathering into pieces gathering into larger pieces that are somehow fitting into the gigantic jigsaw puzzle that is now the reality of him.

They're tripping on shards of memories and bruising themselves against the walls of their minds but they keep going, Neal can't bear to see Peter like this for much longer, Peter is mostly delighted (but also in pain) at being able to feel keys that he hasn't touched in a really long time.

This is the worst possible way it could have been. And they aren't even done fixing the damn thing yet, but they will. They're Caffrey and Burke.

Oops. Burke and Caffrey.


End file.
